Glossika: Do You Even Lift Bro?

We live in an age where languages are at the tips of our fingers. Technology has made it unquestionably easier for language learning. Personally, I use about five or six software programs to assist in my journey, but today I’ll be discussing a newer addition by the name of Glossika.

What is Glossika?

Glossika is a spaced repetition program designed to help the user achieve fluency through audio reps. A rep is similar to what you would do in a gym… only that it’s pertaining to language learning muscle. The idea is to repeat and mimic the native speaker so often that eventually you achieve “fluency”. Mike Campbell, founder of Glossika has loosely defined fluency as “Being able to say a sentence in one full breath, it flows from beginning to end.”

Pros:

Content: Glossika offers over 50+ languages, each of them amassing 3000 sentences of beginner-advanced levels. So, not only will you be learning something new just about every day but you’ll be reviewing previous items as well due to its SRS. You can also sort the content that you want to see in your sessions. This allows for focus in the target language. Want to learn about business but not medical practice – easy! In addition, all content was recorded by native speakers, so you can’t go wrong with mispronunciation or perfecting your accent.

Glossika Topic Selector

User-Friendly: Literally, all you have to do is read and repeat. Feel free to write things down if you want, but all you HAVE to do is open up the website, click “Session” and do your reps for the day. The sessions also never become too hard or too easy, because the AI adjusts to your pace after completing a session.

Glossika Japanese Session @290 Reps

Builds Muscle Memory: The whole idea behind Glossika is to strengthen your speaking skills through consistent speaking. Speaking can almost be considered a reflex in the world of language learning. By the time you hit 100,000 reps or even 1,000,000, you’ll be trigger ready to say just about anything.

Glossika Progress Report Week 1

Cons

Lack of Grammar Explanation: This one isn’t necessarily so much of a con if viewed from the perspective of Glossika, but for me and nearly everyone else I’d say it is. Glossika doesn’t explain grammar in a detailed fashion, in fact, it doesn’t at all. The idea is to expose you to 3000 sentences in a logical order so that the grammar unconsciously falls into place. It kind of makes sense, because in our first languages we never really stop to think about the structure of our speech. On this note, going with the flow is okay, but don’t hesitate to look something up if you need assistance.

Pricey: Not going to lie, all of this awesome stuff costs a pretty penny. I’m currently on the monthly plan at $30.00/month, yes per month! The yearly plan goes for something like $ 288.00/annual. I don’t know how I feel about the pricing, but for unlimited audio, speaking and diction training for 50+ languages it may just be worth it…if you’re Bill Gates.

Glossika’s Pricing

No Books: For those of you who aren’t aware, the program did once offer books along with their courses that somewhat explained the courses. However, after the system update that boasted flexibility and user-friendliness, those books vanished from the catalogue. You can however still find remnants of Glossika’s language books on Amazon.